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The Mars House

A BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick

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The Mars House

By: Natasha Pulley
Narrated by: Daniel de Bourg
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Summary

'Pure Pulley' STUART TURTON
'Joyful and profound' CATRIONA WARD
'Simply unputdownable' THOMAS D. LEE

January Stirling was one of the principal dancers of London's Royal Ballet. Now he's a climate refugee bound for Tharsis, the notorious terraformed colony on Mars. It's a utopia for the naturalised population. For January, as a dangerous Earthstronger whose body is unadjusted to the weaker Martian gravity, it's a life sentence to hard labour and ferocious discrimination.

But he will live.

Aubrey Gale, energy trillionaire and hereditary senator, is running for election on a hardline platform to protect the native population from dangerous immigrants. The path to equality is simple, requiring all Earthstrongers who choose to come to Mars to undergo the disabling and sometimes fatal process of surgical naturalisation.

Which is no life at all.

When a disastrous media encounter plunges Aubrey and January's lives into chaos, the solution is a five-year made-for-reality-TV marriage that could secure January's future and ensure Aubrey's political success . . . but it soon becomes clear that thousands of lives hang in the balance, and nothing is as it seems.

Timely and utterly unputdownable, The Mars House is an exceptional genre-blending story about privilege, strength, life, and love across class divisions - perfect for fans of Babel by R.F. Kuang, The Ferryman by Justin Cronin, and This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.

©2024 Natasha Pulley (P)2024 Orion Publishing Group Limited
Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Science Fiction & Fantasy Solar System Mars Funny War
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All stars
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Loved this. It manages to combine extraordinary imagery and imaginative storytelling with very believable characters.

Original thinking

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This story is many things and drew me into the worlds and characters created. it is a book that will stay with me.

intriguing, political, subtle romance and suspense

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There is of course the love story but the setting is amazing- the author really builds whole worlds- and Mars does not disappoint.

Love all her books

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Speculative fiction
reminiscent of Ursula LeGuin
themes of gender, refugee politics, linguistics
Queer and non binary characters
page turner
Pulley does not disappoint.
...
there are editing and production problems with the recording. volume and tone changes inexplicably for a sentence here and there, the odd word repeats. not the Quality of previous releases of Pulley's novels. Adequate production, the performance is otherwise good.

Natasha Pulley's Latest Page Turner

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I liked the emotional and physical comparisons between people and today's modern politics, excellent book.

characters

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